Noncognitive skills and scholastic performance

Abstract

This paper provides a first approximation to the literature on noncognitive skills and their relevance for education. When doing so we provide evidence in favour of the hypothesis that the unfavourable relative position of Spain in international rankings of scholastic performance, drop out and early leavers rates is partly due to the fact that the Spanish society do not place enough value on perseverance, responsibility and thrift, the noncognitive skills that have been pointed put as the key skills for success in the educational system, the labor market and also in health status in adulthood. The share of citizens that value perseverance, responsibility and delay gratification or, in general, thrift, as qualities that children should be encouraged to learn at home is systematically lower in Spain than it is in other OECD countries that perform better than Spain in the main education indicators. We provide a summarized description of successful programmes aimed at improving students’ noncognitive skills.